Sludge Report #70 – Hope's Chance - Ariel's Ask

Wednesday, 23 May 2001, 6:26 pm
Column: C.D. Sludge

NOTE: Authors of this report will be anonymous and wide ranging, and occasionally finely balanced. Indeed you are invited to contribute: The format is as a reporters notebook. It will be published as and when material is available. C.D. Sludge can be contacted at sludge@scoop.co.nz. The Sludge Report is available as a free email service..Click HERE - http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/myscoop/ to subscribe...

Sludge Report #70

Hope's Chance - Ariel’s Ask

See also…

Palestinians Refuse Cease-Fire
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010522/ts/israel_palestinians.html

Israel’s leader Ariel Sharon has now – according to reports (See above link) - ordered his troops to stop firing – except where it is necessary to protect human life. The Palestinians, unsurprisingly, do not believe him.

Sludge however, for the sake of hope, is prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

And if the self-styled War Hero Ariel Sharon wants to stand a chance of going down in history as a hero, rather than as a child killer and war criminal, he now has a choice.

He can speak with forked toungue, and maintain the cycle of violence, or he can take the one sure action which will assure Palestinians, and the world, that Israel truly wants peace.

And this is an option that takes courage.

Ariel faces the same choice that General Wiranto and President Habibe of Indonesia, when the situation in East Timor spiralled out of control in September 1999.

Then nobody thought it remotely possible. But it happened.

Then there was a miraculous peace. Maybe we can have another one. And now basically, it is all up to Ariel.

It is time to call in the International UN peace keepers. Go to it Ariel!

Anti©opyright Sludge 2001

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Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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